Once again, we rolled into town after dark. This time was on purpose, as Court and Sylvain had timed the ride for sunset on the top of the pass.

Salinas is named after its original industry, salt mining. (Wikipedia lists a different Salinas, Ecuador, which is a large, coastal city). The Salinas we went to had a population in the low 100's. Salt was very important in this area before refrigeration became available. Now, the town operates as a sort of co-op, with most of the entire community working the two new industries, cheese and chocolate.

View of town from our hotel room, the next morning. The white building in the far left center is the cheese factory, best known for its production of Gruyere (swiss) cheese, after a Swiss industrialist moved to town.

The route on Day 5 would take us down into the cloudforest where the temps and humidity got downright steamy.

And the vegetation changed accordingly

In Ecuador, and maybe the rest of South America, there's something about kids wanting to ride on the tops of the vehicles. I only caught this one shot, but on a previous day, we had seen an entire school bus full of kids, with about 15-20 more kids riding on top of the bus.

On the final day of riding, we needed to climb from 243 feet above sea level, up to near 12,000 feet, before dropping back down into Quito, at around 9,000 feet. It would take most of the day to do it. Lot's of steep and rocky climbing, and a few stream crossings

Looks like a narrow mountain road

But even on this one, you had to watch out for the occasional bus or truck, coming around a blind corner

As we gained elevation, the scenery changed back to the previous awesomeness

And the road even became paved in some areas

If you look close, you can see Jen's right shoulder and elbow all the way down trying to squeak more power out of Pepper, as we topped the E35 summit over Quito at about 12,000 feet

Ecuador is a great place to fly and ride. Motorcycles are everywhere in Ecuador, although I did not recognize many of the brands. Lot's of 125cc Chinese imports and other, all dressed up to look like KTM, Yam, Suz, Kaw, etc.

Ecuador uses the USD as its currency. Yay! No exchange bullshit.

Lot's of stuff is cheap. $0.90 for a beer, under $5 for lunch, gas seemed to be at a fixed price of $1.48 everywhere we went. And by fixed, I mean painted on the side of the building, not some L.E.D. readout that changes by the second. We stayed at what I considered a very nice hotel in Quito for $70/night and it came with a full 'merican breakfast. Similar place in the US would have been $150-200/night, and another $20 for breakfast.

No one expects a tip, but they are really happy when they do get one. The standard tip for any meal, regardless of price, is $1.

Carry cash. Many, many places do not take credit cards. Also, don't carry anything bigger than a $20. Very few (no one?) will accept $50 bill or larger.

The people there are super-friendly, once you get outside of the cities. We didn't have anything stolen from us, even when leaving a pile of gear at the lunch table and going out for a stroll through town for 15-20 minutes. But I wouldn't try that in the cities. I did stick to keeping my money hidden in my boots, throughout the trip.

Fly-n-ride tips
Arrive a day or two early. Mark and Mark made the best of it, but I know they were missing having their luggage. It only arrived 1 day late, but the logistics of getting it to us in the middle of nowhere did not exist. They had to make due without.

Jen and I did not even check luggage. 1 carry-on each, that's it. The carry-on had a helmet, riding pants, 1 change of quick-dry clothes and a bunch of little packets of Tide. We washed our clothes in the hotel room sink every night, and rolled them tightly in hotel towels to dry. I didn't have my motocross boots, but my Sidi dual sport boots were good enough for this tour, and could easily be worn on the plane.

The international flight was a lot shorter than I expected. Only 4 1/2 hours from Houston.

We never got sick. Followed the simple rules of drinking only bottled water and never eating fruits or veggies that still had skin on. i.e. peel your tomato if you're gonna eat it.

When we go back, it will be hard to decide whether to do another guided tour or go it alone. Alone is certainly more adventurous. But the guys at Freedom were just too much fun to have along, and they know where the hidden gems of the countryside are. We would not have seen half of the stuff we did, had we gone solo. And they are starting to do research for a Snakes and Spiders Amazon Tour...

All in all, it was a great time! And a good good way to decompress from work, for relatively little coin. Cheers!

As Will mentioned, we will be adding some additional tours in the Amazon region to balance out the seasonal changes to keep riding here all year long. (the tour they rode is not offered from mid-February to mid April as the rainy season creates lots of landslides and road closures). We do have riding all year long here...